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breathing space
The Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi suggests that
greatness exists in the inconspicuous, the minor, the hidden and the ephemeral.
Pared down to the essentials, the beauty of things modest and humble can
gain strength through understatement, creating a reverberation on a sensory
level. Kandinsky spoke of the choice of that object corresponding to a
vibration in the human soul. "As every word spoken rouses an inner
vibration, so like-wise does every object represented."
The French poet, Francois Ponge, writes: "A shell is a small thing,
but I can exaggerate its size by putting it back where I found it on an
expanse of sand. What I'll do is to take a fistful of sand and observe
the little that's left in my hand after almost all of it has run through
the interstices between my fingers; I'll observe a few grains, then each
grain, and not one of these grains will still seem a small thing; soon
the form of the shell, this oyster shell or this razor clam, will impress
me as an enormous monument, colossal and yet exquisite. Mysterious."
I have attempted through my drawings and paintings to capture that intangible
sense of something greater than ourselves that one can find in nature
or in a carefully crafted object. I hope to engage the viewer's intuitive
love of beauty, letting his or her mind wander into the painted image,
soak up the quiet space, go inward and beyond.
In Australia I draw sustenance from the ocean's infinite horizon. When
you sit by the sea, the clarity and expansiveness of the image can trigger
haunting memories, dreams, emotions.
Here in Malaysia, as the lush surrounds of Rimbun Dahan's fertile garden
jostled for attention, my work became preoccupied with isolating elements
from their prolific, competitive environment, separating them from the
mass of sensory input, giving them space to breathe and convey a sense
of their uniqueness. In a quest for peace, beauty and space, I found myself
continually eliminating elements, reducing the images to a state of unencumbered
simplicity.
biography
Australian artist Margot Wiburd began her
creative career as an advertising copywriter, followed by work as a producer's
assistant with ABC Television in Melbourne. After extensive language studies
in Germany and Spain she returned to advertising for five years, working
with Saatchi & Saatchi Compton in Madrid.
After a nine year absence, Margot returned to Australia to study art,
graduating from RMIT with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1989. Since graduation,
steady development in painting has been complemented by a stimulating
ten years assisting feature film director, Paul Cox, in a variety of roles,
including a writing collaboration. During this period Margot was awarded
a short tuition scholarship at the Academy of Realist Art in Seattle and
was accepted into the Ecole Albert de Fois in France to study classical
oil painting techniques for six months and a further three months the
following year. A masterclass in portraiture followed with Jacob Collins
in New York.
In 1998 a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada resulted
in her first solo exhibition. Later that year, at the conclusion of work
on a major feature film in Hawaii, Margot lived for a month in a beach
shack on the outskirts of the remote settlement of Kalaupapa (a former
leper colony) on the island of Molokai. The isolation, tranquility and
overwhelming spirituality of her surrounds resulted in the first of her
multi-panelled works combining figurative and abstract elements to create
the mood of a particular place and time.
Several group shows and a further solo exhibition in Melbourne reveal
a consolidation of the main features of her work: an exploration of space,
calm and simplicity.
Margot was selected as the 2001 artist as part of the Rimbun Dahan Residency
program offered to one Australian and one Malaysian artist each year by
Hijjas Kasturi. During her residency she has worked both in pastel on
paper and oil on canvas, inspired by the abundance of natural resources
at her disposal at Rimbun Dahan, by her travels within Malaysia, by the
jade bracelets she so admires, and from still life. She considers the
Rimbun Dahan residency to be one of the finest opportunities available
world wide through which an artist can focus, take risks, grow and give
themselves heart and soul to their work in an atmosphere of complete support
and kindness, with the added interest of immersion into a challenging
new culture.
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